Instagram accounts linked to Muslim Murdiev’s relatives have published a video of his release. The footage shows the young man walking out of the penal colony, where he is met by his mother and other family members.
As a reminder, on September 29, 2025, Moscow’s Savelovsky District Court found Murdiev guilty of hooliganism and sentenced him to one year and 11 months of imprisonment.
Murdiev has fully served his sentence. The minor had been under house arrest since late December 2023; consequently, after the verdict took effect, he had to spend approximately one year in custody.
The teenager’s relatives repeatedly stated that the strict restrictions imposed during his nearly two-year-long criminal prosecution effectively deprived him of the opportunity to continue his education properly or lead the normal life of a schoolboy.
According to investigators, Murdiev—along with four other minors—participated in several incidents of hooliganism involving assaults and mass brawls at the Aviapark and Discovery shopping centers in Moscow, as well as at Khodynskoye Pole Park.
Murdiev himself categorically denied his guilt. He maintained that he became a suspect in the criminal case after intervening to protect a 12-year-old acquaintance who was being attacked by other teenagers.
"I stood up for my 12-year-old friend and asked them to leave him alone and not gang up on him. After that, I was struck, and during the fight, I was threatened with a knife; they said, 'I have a knife, I’ll kill you,'" he recounted.
According to Murdiev, it was following this incident that—unexpectedly for him—he found himself not a victim, but an accused defendant. The defense also argued that the teenager had no involvement in several of the incidents he was charged with, noting that evidence of his participation was either missing or unsupported by video footage.
Murdiev’s case sparked significant public outcry from the very beginning. The defense, the teenager’s relatives, and various public figures maintained his innocence or considered the punishment imposed on the minor to be excessively harsh. Tatyana Moskalkova, Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner at the time, advocated for a more lenient pre-trial restriction and sentence, deeming the minor's detention disproportionate to the circumstances of the case.
The case gained further political resonance in December 2024, when the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, publicly criticized Alexander Bastrykin (head of the Investigative Committee) and Vladimir Kolokoltsev (Minister of Internal Affairs) during his "Direct Line" broadcast, stating that they were "in the wrong jobs" and expressing confidence that Murdiev "would not be imprisoned." Despite this, on September 29, 2025, the court found the teenager guilty and sentenced him to actual imprisonment.
Following the verdict, many observers linked the outcome to the public conflict between Ramzan Kadyrov and the heads of Russia's law enforcement agencies, believing Murdiev had become a casualty of this standoff.
Shortly before his release, Murdiev’s mother reported that he had been transferred to the Volgograd region, even though less than a month remained of his sentence. According to her, the family did not know the teenager's whereabouts for several days and was unable to contact him after the transfer. Relatives and the defense team described the decision to transfer him as unjustified and expressed concerns for Murdiev’s safety, citing previous threats. Consequently, the teenager's mother appealed to the Russian President and the head of Chechnya, asking them to ensure her son's safety. As of the time of publication, there have been no official statements from the FSIN regarding Murdiev’s release. There have also been no public comments from his family or lawyers so far.
